BlueLotus wrote:I If Mara is symbol for our own craving how did he appear to enlightened ones? Doesn't make sense.

And how do the arahants handle Mara when he appears?

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++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

BlueLotus wrote:I If Mara is symbol for our own craving how did he appear to enlightened ones? Doesn't make sense.

And how do the arahants handle Mara when he appears?

They handle it quite well. BUT if Mara is just bad mental states how can bad mental states arise in enlightened minds? They have no bad mental states like desire and anger.

But they have bodies and conditioning.

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++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

BlueLotus wrote:Maybe the sutta are not completely rights as devarupan said.

It's not that the suttas aren't right. All the suttas are "right" and "true." It's just that they aren't always meant to be taken literally.

Take the Buddha's birth, for example. In a few suttas, it says that he walked immediately after birth and that lotus flowers grew up underneath each footstep. Do you think that really happened? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that the sutta is lying, trying to convince you that it actually happened. No, it's far more about using metaphor and myth to show us how pure and beautiful the Blessed One was. The question isn't "Did Mara really appear as a real demon to these people?" The question is "How did these people deal with the temptation?" That's what is important, not the truth value of a certain demon.

Does that make sense? The suttas aren't lying to you, they're just not interested in being a science textbook.

Gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain:these conditions among human beings are inconstant,impermanent, subject to change.